Yahrzeit

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"Yahrzeit" (pronounced /ˈjɑr.tsaɪt/) is the twenty-second episode in the fifth season of the American crime drama CSI: NY. The episode aired on April 29, 2009, which according to the Hebrew calendar was also Israel's 61st Independence Day.

Plot

At a high-end auction in the city for highly sought-after jewelry, a man stumbles into the auction room from the back falls to the floor, dead. The dead man, Xander Green, is an employee of the auction house and has, implausibly, both a stab wound and gunshot wound and in the same spot. Hawkes receives the sad news that his Uncle Frank has passed away and makes plans to go out of town for the funeral.

Collected evidence points the CSIs to Michael Elgers, whom the CSI team had encountered in Episode 517 ("A Green Piece"). Danny is about to go question Elgers when Hawkes, whose flight had been delayed, insists on accompanying him. At his car shop, Elgers demeans Hawkes, which infuriates Danny, leading him to brutally beat Elgers as he is taken into custody. When Danny wonders why Hawkes did not react similarly in the face of the despicable insults Elger directed at him, Hawkes replies that his Uncle Frank had taught him to take the high road and remain calm and dignified in the face of bigotry. The incident earns Danny a two-week suspension, of which he tries to see the upside; he will get to spend some time with his new wife, Lindsay, as they await the birth of their child.

When the CSIs visit Green's apartment, Mac and Flack find a hidden shrine of Nazi artifacts, full of personal belongings that had been taken from concentration camp victims, from the ordinary, like toys and journals, to the gruesome, like human teeth and bones used to make trinkets. One of the items is a diary inscribed with the name "Esther Schnitzler." They are disgusted to discover that there is an underground collector's market for such objects. Elger's fingerprints are found, which suggests that he had just broken into the apartment. Elgers is taken into questioning again, this time beaten up by Mac. His garage is found to house an even bigger shrine than Green's, including several bayonet pistols, which, Adam concludes, is the type of weapon that is most likely to have caused the victim's unusual wound. Elgers' alibi checks out, however, and Adam finds that the murder weapon is in Elgers' collection. Mac, in the meantime finds that the bayonet pistol used was infact last used in the time of the Nazis.

Back at square one, Mac takes a different approach and decides to visit a Holocaust archive to find out more about Esther Schnitzler, the woman whose diary was found in Green's apartment. He finds an interview video by a woman named Hannah, Esther's lone surviving relative. Hannah recounts the story of Esther's tragic fate: she had negotiated with a German youth, Klaus Braun, who she had believed to be a member of the German underground. She had given Braun an exquisite diamond brooch in exchange for safe passage, but Braun was actually a member of Hitler Youth, and delivered Esther and her family to a concentration camp, where they were executed upon arrival. Inside Esther's diary is a drawing of the brooch, which had earlier been tied to an old watchmaker, Abraham Klein. Klein, an Auschwitz survivor, has a number tattooed on his arm and says that the brooch had belonged to his late wife. Mac takes a picture of Klein displaying his tattoo.

Mac then sees something disturbingly familiar in the photo of Klein. Age-regression technology reveals that Klein is, in fact, Klaus Braun, the same Hitler Youth member who betrayed Esther and her family. Brought into interrogation, Klein insists that he is not Klaus Braun and that he has raised his son, David, as a good Jew. Mac then presents Klein with the truth: Braun had adopted a Jewish identity (Klein) to facilitate his escape from Germany when the Allies moved in and had lived for over 60 years as the very thing he hated. In addition, he had killed Xander Green with a bayonet pistol(present in the photograph of younger Braun) when the younger man had stolen Esther Schnitzler's diamond brooch from him to sell at auction. Trapped, Klein/Braun mutters in German that all the Jews should have been killed. The Director of the Holocaust Archives also identifies Klein as Braun during interrogation. As Braun is led away in handcuffs, his son, David Klein, the devout Jew, turns his back in shame and disgust.

Mac receives a video from the Holocaust archive. It is an interview of a Buchenwald survivor remembering the kind American soldier who rescued him the day the camps were liberated. The elderly man, when asked the name of the soldier, gave the name Mackenna Boyd Taylor, Mac's father. Mac then goes to see Hannah to return the diamond brooch that they recovered and got cleared for release. Hannah thanks Mac, then invites him to participate with her in the traditional Jewish yahrzeit ceremony, which honors the deceased on their day of death, so that they may honor Esther, and Mac's father.

See also

• List of CSI: NY episodes

External links

• "CBS press release: Yahrzeit". TheFutonCritic.com. http://futoncritic.com/listings.aspx?id=20090312cbs01. Retrieved March 29, 2009. 
• "Yahrzeit" at the Internet Movie Database
• "Yahrzeit" at TV.com